title: Spirituality of parents of children in palliative care.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the spirituality of parents whose children have life-limiting illnesses and to determine the factors associated with parents' spirituality.
  
  
  METHODS
  Telephone survey of 129 parents whose children were enrolled in a pediatric palliative care program in Florida. The Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-being (FACIT-Sp) scale was used to measure parents' spirituality. The Health Utilities Index (HUI) was used to measure health status.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Parents' average score on the FACIT-Sp meaning/peace subscale was 24.1 out of 32, and 12.5 out of 16 for the faith subscale. Parents' average total FACIT-Sp score was 36.6 of 48. Multivariate analyses show that parental black non-Hispanic race, "other" race, being married, as well as children's higher vision and hearing health status were associated with higher spirituality, as measured by the total FACIT-Sp. Two parent household and children's higher speech health status were associated with lower FACIT-Sp scores.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that non-white parents have greater faith-based and overall spirituality than white parents. Spiritual assessments should be conducted for all parents as differing supportive services may be needed. The palliative care team should ensure that parents' spirituality is being incorporated, as appropriate, into their children's routine care.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Outcomes and Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32610, USA. cak@ichp.ufl.edu
authors.forename: Caprice
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Knapp
authors.forename: Vanessa
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Madden
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Charlotte
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Curtis
authors.forename: Phyllis
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sloyer
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Shenkman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010166:Palliative Care; D010290:Parents; D029181:Spirituality; D055815:Young Adult